


A Birthday Wish

by helsinkibaby



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Empire Records (1995)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-12
Updated: 2004-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Tara’s birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Birthday Wish

Lucas likes coming up here to the roof of the record store. Here, he can stand alone, watch the world go by, the city buildings spread out before him during the day, the lights shining at night. It is a place where he can be alone, a place where the only sounds are the severely diluted noise of the blissful insanity of the Empire Records store, and the fizzle-fizzle hiss of the neon sign as it threatens to flicker off at any opportunity. That’s been happening more and more often since AJ left to go to art school, and Joe keeps mumbling something about replacing the damn thing, but he hasn’t done anything about it yet. Not that Lucas is complaining about that, because it gives him a chance to come up to the roof on the pretext of checking the sign’s connections.

Today though, it’s not the sign that interests him.

What interests him is the girl who is sitting against one of the concrete blocks, legs in the lotus position, arms resting loosely on her knees. Her fingers play with the stones on the roof surface, letting them run through her hands before picking up another handful and doing the same thing again. She is not looking at her hands though, nor at the sign, is staring straight ahead, seemingly lost in thought, her long sandy hair moving slightly in the evening breeze, the neon of the sign casting shadows over her face.

She looks very quiet, very lonely, and the thought strikes him again that Tara Maclay is not your typical Empire Records employee.

When compared to Deb, she’s quiet and shy.

When compared to Gina, she’s downright dowdy.

When compared to Mark, she’s level-headed.

When compared to Lucas himself, even though she’s quiet, she’s an open book.

And when compared to the other candidates for the position that Lucas and Joe interviewed, she was pretty much the only choice; someone who could speak in complete, if stuttering sentences, someone who was reliable, trustworthy, someone, as Joe pointed out, who didn’t have a driving licence, and couldn’t take off to Atlantic City on a whim.

Someone who loves music, who sings to herself when she thinks no-one can hear her. Lucas hears her thought, and he knows she’s got a hell of a voice. Gina knows that too, and sometimes she’s cattier to Tara than might be called for, something that sets Joe glaring at her, and Lucas can see him biting his tongue.

Someone who’s reliable, yes, who never misses her shift, is never late, but someone who, when Joe lost his temper at Lucas once, literally quailed in the corner as Joe brought thunder and damnation down upon Lucas’s head. Lucas took it all on the chin, it was nothing he hadn’t heard before, and it was nothing compared to being bounced off every wall in Joe’s office, but he’d stood at the adjacent till to Tara for two hours that afternoon and saw her shaking hands, couldn’t get the sight of Tara’s scared eyes out of his head for days afterwards.

He’s got the feeling that there’s something going on in her life that she’s not telling anyone, and he’s interested enough to want to know what it is, to want to help her out, but she won’t talk to him about it. All he knows about her is that she’s a senior in high school, about her classes, about the colleges she wants to go to, the courses she wants to take. He knows she likes music, that she can sing, and that she’s quiet.

And that it was his inquisitive nature that drove her up here today.

He didn’t mean for things to happen like this, but, as the Atlantic City debacle proves, things have a way of spiralling out of control for him. What happened was that he was curious about Tara, wanted to find out where she lived so that he could drop by on some pretext, and, as such, was checking out her application form. That’s when he saw it.

“Hey Joe? Do you know it’s Tara’s birthday on Saturday?”

Joe had looked up sharply from his desk then, eyes narrowing at the sight of the folder in Lucas’s hand. “Lucas,” he’d said, and the word was a warning. “What are you doing with confidential records?”

“Reading,” Lucas had replied simply, taking a step back when Joe’s hand slammed down on the table. “But look,” he’d said, trying to distract Joe, putting the file down in front of him, pointing out the relevant date. “Date of birth, October 16, 1980. She’s going to be eighteen on Saturday.”

Joe had tilted his head, Joe-speak for “Well duh doofus, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I’m just saying.” Lucas had tried for nonchalance, missing the mark, he felt, by a country mile. “Don’t you think she would have told us?”

“I think if it was any of our business,” Joe had countered, grabbing the file from him and making for the filing cabinet, “She would have.”

Then it was Lucas’s turn to tilt his head, narrow his eyes. “You think?”

“Lucas.” The word was firm, a verbal slap to the back of the head. “Don’t.”

It was, Lucas thinks now, in no way, shape or form, his fault that the door happened to be open and that Gina was on the other side, listening in. Nor was it his fault that she had taken matters into her own hands, that when Lucas had walked into the back room this morning, he’d been greeted with a huge banner saying “Happy Birthday Tara”, with cards and cake and little party hats. Gina’s smile had been from ear to ear, and she couldn’t understand why Joe and Lucas looked so appalled, even going as far as to glance up at the banner, saying, “What? You thought it would say ‘New Girl’?” Because that was all she’d been calling Tara since the day she’d started there.

It was a nice idea, but Lucas had known that the quiet, shy Tara would be horrified at such a fuss being made, and when she’d walked in, when everyone else had yelled “Surprise” at the top of their lungs, she had literally looked like she was ready to pass out. She’d made a good show at hiding her feelings though, smiling, accepting the good wishes, putting on a hat, blowing out the candles on her cake. But Lucas hadn’t missed the relief with which she’d left the room to go out to the tills, nor had he missed the fact that she’d avoided the back room completely, spending most of her time today on the shop floor.

When she escaped, he knew where she would be, so that’s why he’s here now, on the roof, just looking at her. He’s not sure whether to actually go over and talk to her, but that point is rendered moot when the fizzle-fizzle-hiss of the sign fizzle-fizzle-hisses louder than usual as the sign goes out, the noise making him jump. Thus the stones underneath his feet slide against one another, making a scratching noise loud enough to reach her, making her jump, turn quickly towards him. He’s shocked to see wide-eyed panic written all over her face but it fades quickly, and the smile on her face when she sees it’s him even looks a little genuine.

“Sorry,” he says, holding up his hands, making himself as non-threatening as possible. “You want me to-?” He gestures behind him, but he’s relieved when she shakes her head quickly.

“N-no… it’s f-fine.” There is the possibility, of course, that she’s just being polite, but something in the way she looks at him makes him want to believe her. So he steps closer to her, ends up sitting on one of the concrete blocks beside her, looking up at the sign.

“Sucks to work on your birthday,” he says lightly. “You could have asked for today off you know.”

“Nah. I like working here.”

Lucas lifts an eyebrow, because he does too, but he likes to have his birthday to himself. “On your birthday?”

Tara shrugs, but her lips quiver suddenly, and her eyes are bright with hurt as they look away from him. “This is my first birthday without my Mom,” she says quietly. “She died last year.”

“I’m sorry.” There’s a pause as he kicks himself for his inadequate words, then, because he is Lucas, he continues with a story. “My mom turned me over to the county when I was ten. Every year I still miss her.” He’s not looking at her as he speaks, and he’s surprised when she leans against him, just a little, but enough for him to feel her arm against his leg. He smiles, feeling awkward. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“I’ve never told anyone about my mom.”

There is another silence then, a silence where they take in the sky, the city before them, and Lucas feels a smile tugging at his lips.

Then he remembers why he came up here. “I’m sorry about… downstairs,” he says, glancing over at her to see the shake of her head.

“It’s ok.” But if the doubt in her voice didn’t give her away, the purse of her lips would have. “It’s nice.”

“I was checking the files for… something,” he admits. “Noticed your birthday… Gina overheard me pointing it out to Joe. I didn’t know she was going to do something like this.”

Tara chuckles. “I thought she hated me.” Then, with a tilt of her head and a twinkle of her eyes, she adds, “Though I’m not so sure she doesn’t.”

Her words bring forth a laugh from Lucas, because he’s never heard Tara make a quip like that before. And, he realises, he’s never heard her speak without stuttering before. “I, um… I brought you something,” he says, and she looks at him in surprise, surprise changing to wariness before his eyes. “It’s just…” He reaches down beside the block, finds the small bag that she didn’t see him put there. He takes out its contents by touch, doesn’t look away from her as he’s doing it.

Thus, he sees the smile that comes to her lips, the way her hands fly to cover it. He hears the laugh that’s trying to escape as he shows her a banana muffin with a single candle in it, takes his cigarette lighter out of his pocket and sets a flame dancing on the candle. “They’re my favourite,” she squeaks, words muffled by her hands, and at that, Lucas grins.

“I know,” he says.

She shakes her head, drops her hands to raise herself up onto the cement block beside him. “How?” she wonders, and his answer is easy.

“Same way I knew you’d be up here,” he says simply. A blush coats her cheeks and she drops her head, and once again, his words come without thinking. “You have the greatest smile I’ve ever seen.”

If possible, her blush grows even more pronounced, but she doesn’t duck her head, instead, she raises it to look into his eyes, and her smile grows wider.

Without a word, he holds out the muffin, and she leans forward, blowing the flame out in one puff.

At the exact same time, the sign bursts back into life, the neon light casting an almost halo effect around her, and if he believed in signs, he’d be wondering about that.

“Did you make a wish?” he asks, and she takes the muffin from him, leaves it down on the concrete between them. Then she takes his hand in hers, lets her head fall onto his shoulder.

She doesn’t say anything, but Lucas smiles anyway.

It might be her birthday, but it looks like it’s his wish that came true.  



End file.
